Shelf cabinet



Get. 13 1925- Z. P. PIETRZYCKI A SHELF CABINET Filed March 17, 1924 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 m P Z A TTORNEYS.

Oct. 13, 1925- 5,7

Y Z. P. PIETRZYCKI seam cumm- Filod latch 17, 1924 ZSheets-Shoot 2 will? A TTORNEYS.

Patented Oct. 13, 1925.

UNITED- STATES 'ZIEG-MUND BFTERS PIETItZY CXI, OF KLAMATH FALLS, OREGON.

s'nnnn CABINET.

' Application filed March 17, 195:4 Serial No. 699,922.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ZIEGMUND PETERS Pm'rRzYoKI, a citizen of the United States,

v and a. resident of Klamath Falls, county of Klam'ath, State of Oregon, have invented a new. and useful Shelf Cabinet, of which the following is a specification.

r This invention relatesto adjustable shelf cabinets as used for storage of any kind of materialin packages, or uniform sizes in stores or warehouses, or for books, card indeXes and the like, or for plans, maps, et cetera, in oflices. f

' Theobjects of the invention are to provide a cabinet on-storage shelves for any material asmentioned whichwill do away with the waste of space now prevailing in all cabinets and sets of drawers, and which will provide for extending the shelves or cabinet by'mechanical cooperation with the first-cabinet, also one whichimay be op-.

erated by power if desired, alsoa[ cabinet of this type which will hold maps or plans or other sheets fiat and .prevent the troublesome shifting and creeping of such plans and maps when on tracing cloth.v

T Simply stated, my invention consists in a series of superimposed. shelves lying against the stored'ma'terial placed between them. In other words,the material is carried onone. shelf and the next shelf above rests on the material and so'onl.

This arrangement of course forms a solid v stack without-lost space of any kind, and in H F terial stored.

the case of plans or maps the sheets are held flat and clamped against any =movement between ,the shelves, and also forms a better protection in case of fire, as free circulation of air is prevented. by the shelves 40" pressing tightly ,on the material.

When it is desired to gain access to-thematerial on one shelf, suitable mechanism is employed to lift: all the shelves above that one a short distance so as to .makethe desired shelf free, and such mechanism may of course assumemany' forms either manually or power operatedrdepending on the size of the shelves or weight of the ma- One method of realizing my invention above described is shown in the drawings hereto and in which:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a cabinet embodying the features enumerated and is operated by a foot pedal;

Figure 2 is a detached fragment of the the shelf with a covering veneer removed showing the clutch mechanism lying in a depression in the shelf; s i

' Figure 5 is an edge view of the shelf;

Figure 6 illustrates an optional power drive for the shelf lifting mechanism.

Inthe drawing (1); is a cabinet frame having shelves (2) therein.- These shelves rest upon the material, in this case books or cards (3) between them, and are free to fall to rest against any size books, or other materialwhich it'is desired to keep on the shelves. 7

At both sides of the cabinet are vertically sliding panels (t) which are shown in Figure 1 as being visible at the top of the cabinet in the grooves (5), though it might be mentioned here that in practice any suitable cover may be used to conceal the upper ends of the grooves in which they work.

These sliding panels (4) are thus made accessible at the upper endf'of the cabinet for the purpose of contacting at the ends with similar panels of another cabinet which may be placed on top of the first one so'as tobe operated by a common mechanism at the bottom of the first one.

At the right hand side of the, cabinet near the floor is a pedal (6) for simultaneously raising the panels about three or four inches, or any other distance which may be determined upon. 7

When this pedal is pressed down with the foot it will be locked against return by the dog (7) engaginga stop or segment (7), and to release it'thedog (7) is pressed upon and both pedal and dog allowed to. come back to starting position. I

The shelves each have a clutch which is adapted to engage both panels so that any desired shelf will rise with the panels to free the material between the raised shelf and the one justbelowit.

The clutches comprise any suitable arrangement of arms lying in a covered depression in the shelf and are operated by i against a transverse board (11) which engages the .under edges, of the panels.

Each panel carries a pair of toothed racks (12) for receiving at any point the clutch arms (13) of the shelves.

These arms (13) are T formed and lie in grooves in the under side of theshelves as shown in Figures 4 and .5, and are slidable toward and from the aforesaid racks, and are operated by moving the lever one way to engage the arms with the racks and the other way to release them.

Figure 4 shows the operation of the clutch arms, the lever (8) is pivoted to the shelf at (1-1)and carries two links (15), one on each side of the pivot (let), having projections 16) working in slots (17) in the T arms, and each link is connected by a spring (18) with the inner end of the T ,arm as shown, whereby a movement of the hand lever will positively pull the arms inward to disengage the racks, but the outward movement will be controlled by the springs so that in event of the arms striking the top of a rack tooth, they will snap into place in the first tooth space presented upon actuating the shelf raising part of the apparatus.

The springs (18) while strong enough to pull the arms straight out into contact with the racks cannot act reversely to influence the lever as the projections (16) will be at the ends of the slots.

After lowering the shelf to a support upon the material beneath it, the lever (8) is movedsidewise and the arms (13) return todisengaged position.

In Figure 51 the edge view of :a shelf is shown with the clutch mechanism covered by a veneer strip (19) so that the under side presents a smooth surface to rest upon the material on the next shelf below.

It will be apparent that with very large and weighty shelves of material a power lift would be very desirable, and my invention provides for this as shown by Figure 6, showing the lower part of one side of the cabinet with a motor (20) worm geared at (21) to the shaft (9), and having a link (22) pivoted to the sliding panel and con nected to cranks formed on the shaft (9) so the link connections can revolve to raise and lower the panels, a link being connected to each panel.

The wiring of the motorforms a circuit (24;) through the racks and shelf mechanism by means of the sliding contact (25) so that upon the arms engaging the racks, the motor will at once be energized to lift the shelves. When the shelf is at a .suitably elevated p'ositon the handlev (8) is pulled slightly to break its electricalcontact with the terminal (26) to stop the mo-- tor.

The circuit may be completed through any shelf independently, and in Figure i. the shelf circuit to the shelf mechanism is dot-ted "at (24:) and the position of the sliding contact (25) and lever contact (26) also indicated.

As the motor is worm geared tothe shaft the shelf cannot fall even if the circuit is broken during the rising or falling of the shelf.

'Having thus described .my invention it will be seen that the mere details of why ing it out may be varied greatly without departing from the spirt of the invention, also that it is applicable to superimposed drawers as well as shelves, and any such modifications of the invention are intended to be covered in my appended claims.

I claim:

1. A rectangular cabinet having sides, top

slidable rackbars disposed two on each-op posite side within the cabinet, means for simultaneously sliding the four rack bars, a plurality of super-imposed shelves within the cabinet and between the bars, oppositely disposed slidable T-arms on each shelf and outwardly slidable therefrom to engage the bars, mechanism concealed between the upper surface of each shelf for simultaneously moving the arms outward to engage the bars and a hand lever at the front edge of each shelf for actuating the mechanism.

A cabinet of the character described comprising a fixed frame with a plurality of superimposed shelves loosely arranged therein, vertically movable members at opposite ends of the shelves guided by the frame, a. motor mechanically connected for vertically moving the members simultane-' 

